SD2 program swiftly enhances students' reading skillsRead 180 is an intensive, 90-minute reading class designed to bring struggling readers in the fourth through 12th grades up to reading at their grade level. The program helped improve the reading skills of about 350 students last year, and 867 students are enrolled in the classes this year.

Missoula COT might offer dual-credit plan to high schoolersJim Clark, superintendent of Missoula County Public Schools, and COT Dean Barry Good have been working on setting up a dual-credit system between the COT and Missoula’s high schools, in which juniors and seniors would be eligible to take a language arts or math class at the COT and earn both high school and college credit.

Former CEO of Aspen Skiing Co. Laments Real Estate Development as "Necessary Evil" to Survive"We got into a capital shootout," he said, referring to the competition among resorts to add gondolas, high-speed chairlifts and upscale restaurants on the ski area slopes. Once the industry started adding faster lifts, customers' expectations grew. Now a competitive resort must have the whole mountain covered with high-speed chairs or risk getting shunned. There was no way ski area operators could pay for all the amenities simply by "selling lift tickets and cheeseburgers,"

Request for Proposals - West Yellowstone College Feasibility StudyThe Northern Rocky Mountain Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) is requesting proposals for a West Yellowstone College Feasibility Study to determine the best course of action for expanding and diversifying the town’s economy through a higher education opportunity.

Update of attached Summary of Eastern MT Econ Strategy DRAFTEastern Montana people have taken part in numerous economic development
strategy and planning sessions. The following is a general summary of these
efforts. The list is not all-inclusive, but does provide an overview of the
primary strategies, goals, needs and a few opportunities consistently
identified across the region.

Funding Your DreamThe topics include:
* Getting to venture capitalists
* How to make a presentation
* The optimal length of a business plan
* How to handle the valuation process
* Role changes in the founding team

'Fast-track' bill for rural firms gets OK"We see a great opportunity for us to grow local businesses, and it doesn't take a lot in rural Utah to create a meaningful job or a meaningful opportunity for them. This will give us the opportunity to really take care of that."

$35 mil in state funds set aside for research grantsThe non-profit group secured $35 million in state funds Wednesday and unveiled a plan to pass that money along to startups, university researchers, students, teachers and others as part of an ambitious effort to foster a research-based economy in Arizona.

Focusing on the Issue of Aging, and Growing Into the Job“We need to be thinking differently about aging,” Dr. Butler said over breakfast at his Manhattan offices. “People are living about 30 years longer than they used to. That means that society is going to have more older people, and we’re going to need different priorities and mindsets.”

Wireless Internet's new target: Seattle homesClearwire, wireless pioneer Craig McCaw's latest venture, is officially launching a new service in Seattle that provides Internet service to the home wirelessly. The service, a form of an emerging technology called WiMax, operates through a system of towers that transmit and receive signals allowing users to be online.

Paris Wants To Woo The 'Creative Class' - "A Farewell to Arms" on a laptop?Though it may be a little hard to imagine Hemingway writing "A Farewell to Arms" on a laptop, Delanoe is betting that "le Wi-Fi" (pronounced "wee-fee" here) is one of many changes in Paris that will attract creative spirits as well as legions of young people who might otherwise flee the tradition-bound city for places closer to the cutting edge.

Brilliant Minds on the Next 50 YearsIf the revelations of the last 50 years are anything to go on - the internet and the human genome for example - we probably have not even thought up the exciting advances that lay ahead of us.